It is my grave misfortune to hear BBC Radio 1 once a week. Not my choice. During my weekly "treats", I've heard Edith Bowman twittering on about Scotland and the "bagpipes" - whilst never once referring to England. I've heard brain-dead DJs twittering on about the thrill of having jelly beans in the studio. I've heard many re-hashes of 1980s songs, and (post) modern songs that sound like they're straight from the 1960s and even, occasionally (God help us) the 1970s.
And today I heard Scotland The Brave played on the bagpipes.
With all its current biased Scots content, the BBC needs to drop the first "B" and replace it with an "S".
It could stand for "Scottish" or it could stand for "Shit".
Either would be appropriate.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
CEP: 2000 Labour Party delegates to applaud the negation of the English Democratic Tradition
2000 labour party delegates got to their feet in Brighton in the county of Sussex to applaud the repudiation by Gordon Brown of the very fundamentals of England's democratic tradition.
Yesterday afternoon the delegates to the Labour Party Conference -Cabinet Ministers, MPs, Peers, Party officials and 2000 delegates from across the United Kingdom got up and clapped and shouted their approval as Gordon Brown, MP for Kirkaldy and Cowdenbeath in Fifeshire in Scotland, announced measure after measure of new legislation for England, and only for England, in defiance of the very fundamentals of what the people of England founded their parliament for 800 years ago.
The CEP National Council has circulated its membership with a statement on this matter.
'Gordon Brown announced new legislation to place new teenage mothers in hostels rather than council houses; to provide free personal care for the very elderly in their homes, to limit pub opening hours, to control broken familes unable to control their children, to bring in additional controls on wild disruptive youngsters, to provide 250,000 free childcare places and to delay the introduction of ID cards. Very many people will indeed agree with these measures. That is not an issue that the CEP as such involves itself with. The CEP is concerned with democracy for England. When England gets its own parlament, its parliament will concern itself wholeheartedly with the welfare of the people of England.
'These measures concern matters which affect England only. The fundamental nature of English democracy as founded with the English Parliament in the 13th century and developed by the people of England over the past 800 years is that it is representative democracy. Law makers are accountable to the people who elect them. They are elected to be their representatives in their parliament. But Brown is not elected by any English voters. He is not accountable to any English voter for any of these specific measures. His action, and the conference applause for it, is a repudiation of this most fundamental aspect of the English democratic tradition.
Contact:
Michael Knowles
CEP Media Unit. Tel: 01260 271139
Email: michael-knowles@tiscali.co.uk
Yesterday afternoon the delegates to the Labour Party Conference -Cabinet Ministers, MPs, Peers, Party officials and 2000 delegates from across the United Kingdom got up and clapped and shouted their approval as Gordon Brown, MP for Kirkaldy and Cowdenbeath in Fifeshire in Scotland, announced measure after measure of new legislation for England, and only for England, in defiance of the very fundamentals of what the people of England founded their parliament for 800 years ago.
The CEP National Council has circulated its membership with a statement on this matter.
'Gordon Brown announced new legislation to place new teenage mothers in hostels rather than council houses; to provide free personal care for the very elderly in their homes, to limit pub opening hours, to control broken familes unable to control their children, to bring in additional controls on wild disruptive youngsters, to provide 250,000 free childcare places and to delay the introduction of ID cards. Very many people will indeed agree with these measures. That is not an issue that the CEP as such involves itself with. The CEP is concerned with democracy for England. When England gets its own parlament, its parliament will concern itself wholeheartedly with the welfare of the people of England.
'These measures concern matters which affect England only. The fundamental nature of English democracy as founded with the English Parliament in the 13th century and developed by the people of England over the past 800 years is that it is representative democracy. Law makers are accountable to the people who elect them. They are elected to be their representatives in their parliament. But Brown is not elected by any English voters. He is not accountable to any English voter for any of these specific measures. His action, and the conference applause for it, is a repudiation of this most fundamental aspect of the English democratic tradition.
Contact:
Michael Knowles
CEP Media Unit. Tel: 01260 271139
Email: michael-knowles@tiscali.co.uk
Friday, September 18, 2009
Cancer Research UK - Sexist And Uncaring When It Comes To Men...
Chris has just fired off an e-mail to Cancer Research UK:
I am writing to inform you that as male, I will no longer be supporting Cancer Research UK as I believe that it is a sexist, perhaps even misandrist, organisation.
As breast cancer numbers continue to fall, Cancer Research chooses to display highly sexist posters on buses in England. The one I saw today was apparently about "joining the fight for women's survival", and displayed a picture of two women hitting a man with boxing gloves. Was the man supposed to represent cancer?
What has happened to men's health issues? A small minority of men also contract breast cancer. But that highly relevant piece of information is well tucked away on your site. Surely, trumpeting breast cancer as a purely female health issue is failing in your duty of care?
Meanwhile, prostate cancer is on the rise, but there are no similar "men's survival" campaigns within Cancer Research.
WHY?
Your campaign is horrifically skewed and biased, the imagery of the two women hitting the man on the poster displayed on the bus was pathetic and I cannot make any further donations to such a sexist and uncaring organisation.
I will keep my eyes and ears open for any non-sexist cancer research campaigns, and in the meantime will be directing any further donations I may have made to your organisation to the British Heart Foundation.
Cancer Research UK joins such luminaries as that highly renowned misandrist Harriet Harman by winning our Sexist Slime Of The Month Award.
Richly deserved for an organisation which goes all out to cater for the health of the female gender, and wilfully short-changes the male - even promoting anti-male imagery as part of its feminine health awareness campaigns.
I am writing to inform you that as male, I will no longer be supporting Cancer Research UK as I believe that it is a sexist, perhaps even misandrist, organisation.
As breast cancer numbers continue to fall, Cancer Research chooses to display highly sexist posters on buses in England. The one I saw today was apparently about "joining the fight for women's survival", and displayed a picture of two women hitting a man with boxing gloves. Was the man supposed to represent cancer?
What has happened to men's health issues? A small minority of men also contract breast cancer. But that highly relevant piece of information is well tucked away on your site. Surely, trumpeting breast cancer as a purely female health issue is failing in your duty of care?
Meanwhile, prostate cancer is on the rise, but there are no similar "men's survival" campaigns within Cancer Research.
WHY?
Your campaign is horrifically skewed and biased, the imagery of the two women hitting the man on the poster displayed on the bus was pathetic and I cannot make any further donations to such a sexist and uncaring organisation.
I will keep my eyes and ears open for any non-sexist cancer research campaigns, and in the meantime will be directing any further donations I may have made to your organisation to the British Heart Foundation.
Cancer Research UK joins such luminaries as that highly renowned misandrist Harriet Harman by winning our Sexist Slime Of The Month Award.
Richly deserved for an organisation which goes all out to cater for the health of the female gender, and wilfully short-changes the male - even promoting anti-male imagery as part of its feminine health awareness campaigns.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Vince Cable - Lazy-Minded MP, Repeats Old Claptrap About The Poll Tax...
Vince Cable - Liberal Democrat MPIt always galls us to stand up for Margaret Thatcher on this blog. But when lazy-minded politicians like Vince Cable roll out old untruths, word for word, well, we really have to say something!
Momentum built up in the Eighties, especially when Mrs Thatcher made Scots the guinea pigs for the Poll Tax
Poll Tax "Guinea pigs"? Not again?! Thatcher didn't make Scots "guinea pigs" for the Tax. George Younger, Scottish Secretary of State, asked for the Tax a year early in Scotland because he didn't think the Scots should have to wait for the English!
Read more here.
Several of us involved with this blog were actually members of English "STOP THE POLL TAX" campaigns from 1988 onwards - and costly preparations were well underway for the planned introduction of the Tax in England and Wales in 1990.
Now, surely, if the Scots were to be used as "guinea pigs" for the Poll Tax, the preparations in England and Wales would have been put on hold, and surely it would take rather more than one year to prove the Tax's worth or otherwise? Wouldn't there be various wrinkles to be ironed out? Wouldn't introducing the Tax in Scotland in 1989 and holding off on any decision regarding England and Wales until around 1992 have been more logical if the "guinea pig" scenario was true?
Vince Cable's Daily Mail article is a very shoddy piece of writing. Simply recycling old claptrap is a bore.
And England comes nowhere in Mr Cable's deliberations, as usual.
Indeed, at the end of the article, there is a list of relevant people and places:
People:
Alex Salmond,
Gordon Brown,
Vince Cable,
David Cameron,
Fred Goodwin
Places:
Edinburgh,
London,
Glasgow,
Wales,
Canada,
Germany,
Libya,
Scotland,
Northern Ireland,
United Kingdom
Organisations:
Scottish Parliament
But no sign of England.
Of course.
Monday, September 07, 2009
CEP: England? No. Scotland? Yes. BBC bias strikes again
A season of programmes on Scotland's history and culture tells of the delight the BBC takes in the celebration of Scotland. It would never do the same for England.
'The default position for the BBC when it comes to anything to do with England is not to mention it, and certainly it is not to celebrate anything English if the BBC can possibly avoid it. Its default position with Scotland on the other hand is precisely the opposite. The BBC celebrates Scotland and everything Scottish at every opportunity.' That is the CEP's considered comment on the BBC's TV series of programmes 'This is Scotland' which starts this weekend.' in which the BBC will celebrate and examine aspects of Scottish culture, art, film-making, heritage, landscape and psyche.'. (BBC Press Release) .
'A Portrait Of Scotland discusses the artists and paintings that have reflected the changing face of Scotland since the Reformation, The Fighting Scots reviews the history of Scots in the British Army. Scotland On Screen celebrates classic movies and their Scottish locations, there is a programme on Touring Scotland, another on the cult of the Munros, and Michael Portillo chairing a discussion on the possibility of Scottish independence.The season also features documentaries on the legacy of Calvinism in Scotland, on Tweed, the fabric and industry, and on Balmoral, the Royal Family's most private residence and its links to Scottish traditions.
'Can anyone imagine the BBC running anything like that for England?' asks Scilla Cullen chairman in her Autumn message to Campaign membership. 'Just imagine the BBC doing a programme, for example, on Sandringham and the Royal Family's links to the English countryside. It would not as much as enter its head to run a programme on the history of English regiments in the British Army. For the BBC, as an unspoken but governing ideology, there isn't an England. There are Brits and there are the Scots and the Welsh, but there are no English as a distinct people in the same way. Every time he is on the Wimnbledon screen, Andy Murray is a Scot. Tim Henman was always and only a Brit. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, Cardiff the capital of Wales. But never once in all my lifetime have I heard the BBC ever talk of London as the capital of England, which it is.
'For the BBC there is the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That's it. It officially organises itself into what it calls 'the Nations and the Regions', the nations being Scotland, Wales and NI and the regions being its divisions of England into such regions as the North West, the West Midlands etc which have no roots at all in England's history and culture.
'There is BBC Scotland, there is BBC Wales, there is BBC Northern Ireland. But in letter after letter from the BBC Head Office to the CEP, the firm statement is that they will not have a BBC England.
'Instead England is balkanised into a myriad of local stations: BBC Devon, BBC Manchester, BBC Lincolnshire and so on. 'England is too big to have its own BBC station like Scotland and Wales', the Head of the Dept. of 'Nations and Regions' writes to the CEP Media Unit. Yet there is a BBC World Service. Scotland, Wales and NI each has its own Trustee on the BBC Trust Board. England hasn't any. It has an Alison Hastings representing 'the regions'.
'This hostility to the idea of England as a distinct nation goes deep into the psyche of the British Establishment, of which the BBC is a major player culturally and politically,' writes Scilla Cullen. 'It regards the very idea of England as a threat to the narrow Establishment notion of Britishness, dominant but narrow. The BBC is consciously hostile. It is holding back the growth and enjoyment of Englishness, which is as much a direct consequence of the 1998 Devolution legislation as is the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Over the last eleven years the English people have become aware of themselves again as a distinct nation, very aware that they have been deprived of self rule which has been granted to Scotland and Wales, whose MPs can still make legislation for England's internal affairs and have obtained immense benefits for their countries which are denied to England.
'The BBC will have to dragged kicking and screaming into running a season of programmes on England as a distinct nation with its own distinct culture and history. If and when that happens, which in due course it will, it will mean that after 300 years of being denied it has its own identity, the British Establishment has finally accepted the fact that the United Kingdom can change and still exist.
contact:
Mrs Scilla Cullen CEP Chairman Tel: 01438 833155
Email: scilla.cullen@dsl.pipex.com
'The default position for the BBC when it comes to anything to do with England is not to mention it, and certainly it is not to celebrate anything English if the BBC can possibly avoid it. Its default position with Scotland on the other hand is precisely the opposite. The BBC celebrates Scotland and everything Scottish at every opportunity.' That is the CEP's considered comment on the BBC's TV series of programmes 'This is Scotland' which starts this weekend.' in which the BBC will celebrate and examine aspects of Scottish culture, art, film-making, heritage, landscape and psyche.'. (BBC Press Release) .
'A Portrait Of Scotland discusses the artists and paintings that have reflected the changing face of Scotland since the Reformation, The Fighting Scots reviews the history of Scots in the British Army. Scotland On Screen celebrates classic movies and their Scottish locations, there is a programme on Touring Scotland, another on the cult of the Munros, and Michael Portillo chairing a discussion on the possibility of Scottish independence.The season also features documentaries on the legacy of Calvinism in Scotland, on Tweed, the fabric and industry, and on Balmoral, the Royal Family's most private residence and its links to Scottish traditions.
'Can anyone imagine the BBC running anything like that for England?' asks Scilla Cullen chairman in her Autumn message to Campaign membership. 'Just imagine the BBC doing a programme, for example, on Sandringham and the Royal Family's links to the English countryside. It would not as much as enter its head to run a programme on the history of English regiments in the British Army. For the BBC, as an unspoken but governing ideology, there isn't an England. There are Brits and there are the Scots and the Welsh, but there are no English as a distinct people in the same way. Every time he is on the Wimnbledon screen, Andy Murray is a Scot. Tim Henman was always and only a Brit. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, Cardiff the capital of Wales. But never once in all my lifetime have I heard the BBC ever talk of London as the capital of England, which it is.
'For the BBC there is the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That's it. It officially organises itself into what it calls 'the Nations and the Regions', the nations being Scotland, Wales and NI and the regions being its divisions of England into such regions as the North West, the West Midlands etc which have no roots at all in England's history and culture.
'There is BBC Scotland, there is BBC Wales, there is BBC Northern Ireland. But in letter after letter from the BBC Head Office to the CEP, the firm statement is that they will not have a BBC England.
'Instead England is balkanised into a myriad of local stations: BBC Devon, BBC Manchester, BBC Lincolnshire and so on. 'England is too big to have its own BBC station like Scotland and Wales', the Head of the Dept. of 'Nations and Regions' writes to the CEP Media Unit. Yet there is a BBC World Service. Scotland, Wales and NI each has its own Trustee on the BBC Trust Board. England hasn't any. It has an Alison Hastings representing 'the regions'.
'This hostility to the idea of England as a distinct nation goes deep into the psyche of the British Establishment, of which the BBC is a major player culturally and politically,' writes Scilla Cullen. 'It regards the very idea of England as a threat to the narrow Establishment notion of Britishness, dominant but narrow. The BBC is consciously hostile. It is holding back the growth and enjoyment of Englishness, which is as much a direct consequence of the 1998 Devolution legislation as is the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Over the last eleven years the English people have become aware of themselves again as a distinct nation, very aware that they have been deprived of self rule which has been granted to Scotland and Wales, whose MPs can still make legislation for England's internal affairs and have obtained immense benefits for their countries which are denied to England.
'The BBC will have to dragged kicking and screaming into running a season of programmes on England as a distinct nation with its own distinct culture and history. If and when that happens, which in due course it will, it will mean that after 300 years of being denied it has its own identity, the British Establishment has finally accepted the fact that the United Kingdom can change and still exist.
contact:
Mrs Scilla Cullen CEP Chairman Tel: 01438 833155
Email: scilla.cullen@dsl.pipex.com
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